Network elements are commonly separated into a control plane and a data plane (sometimes referred to as a forwarding plane or a media plane). In the case that the network element is a router (or is implementing routing functionality), the control plane typically determines how data (e.g., packets) is to be routed (e.g., the next hop for the data and the outgoing port for that data), and the data plane is in charge of forwarding that data. Many routers are configured to manage communication protocols linking tens, hundreds, or thousands of hosts. These routers may need to send identical control packets to each host under its management. These packets are often communicated from the control plane to the data plane in manner requiring the data plane handle replication of the control packet in software without any hardware assistance thereby blocking a communication channel between the control plane and data plane such as an inter-process communication (IPC) channel. This software replication of control packets in the data plane not only ties up communication channels but also results in an unnecessary use of processing power within the data plane.